Machines such as, for example, wheel loaders, motor graders, track-type tractors, dump trucks, and other types of machinery are used to perform a variety of tasks associated with an industry such as, mining, construction, manufacturing, transportation, or any other such industry. In order to perform these tasks, a machine may include a plurality of systems and each system may have one or more controllers, such as electronic control units (ECUs) or electronic control modules (ECMs). The ECMs may form a network and may be in communication with each other via one or more data links.
A particular function performed by the machine may involve several ECMs. ECMs on machines may be consumers of a great number of different parameters, such as temperatures, pressures, flow rates, gas compositions, relative positions of components, operator inputs, signals indicative of activation or deactivation of various actuators and/or valves, geographical location of the machine, and other sensed and/or calculated data associated with operation of the machine. Parameters that may be requested by one or more ECMs in order to determine control commands for performing various operational aspects of the machine's functions may be obtained from one or more producers of the relevant data. The producers of the relevant data may include sensory devices on-board the machine, sensory devices off-board the machine, one or more other ECMs, processors, or other computing devices on-board or associated with the machine, an operator station, a central control station, and other sources of data received from databases over wired or wireless networks, such as local area networks (LAN), wireless local area networks (WLAN), wide area networks (WAN), Wi-Fi networks, local job site wired and wireless networks, and the Internet.
A method for determining defects per unit of a product and retrieving product test data simultaneously from various data sources is described in U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2016/0147883 to Mukundan et al. (“the '883 publication”). The '883 publication describes a method that generates a data retrieval session between a processor and a database server. Product test data is retrieved from the database server based on a query executed by the processor. Data updating sessions are also generated between the database server and a plurality of data sources.
Although the techniques described in the '883 publication may be effective for improving retrieval of accurate test data, further improvements in the efficiency and accuracy of the exchange of parameter data used to control and monitor the operations of various machines and machine components may still be beneficial. Existing methods of retrieving parameter data needed by various machine components such as electronic control modules (ECMs) generally require a priori knowledge of a statically defined set of parameters for which the data will be requested. This may result in a lack of flexibility and adaptability in updating the parameters for which data is required. Existing methods of communicating the parameter data required by various machine components may also lack backwards compatibility for new or upgraded components when various sources of the parameter data lack the capability to provide the requested parameter data to the replacement components.
The disclosed system and method for communicating negotiated groups of parameters are directed towards overcoming one or more of the shortcomings set forth above.